Economic growth

The dystopia of a world without growth

philmullan Economic growth, Green agenda, Politics, Welfarism

UN agencies, academics and other policymakers have launched an alternative to what they call the ‘doomed strategy’ of economic growth. Signatories to this ‘roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth’ include Olivier De Schutter, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, Thomas Piketty, Kate Raworth and Jason Hickel.

Their ‘roadmap’ is typical of much contemporary growth-critical writing – it is wistful, authoritative and extremely vague about how the post-growth future can be realised.

The notion of a post-growth economy can appear dotty. Yet it embodies the influential ‘progressive’ frame of mind that upholds the need for abstinence on the part of the general populace. These particular economists are among today’s best-known growth sceptics – a splendid term coined by Daniel Ben-Ami to encompass the increasingly celebrated medley of ‘degrowthers’, ‘anti-growthers’ and ‘agrowthers’ (‘a’ is for agnostic). Predicated on the notion that humanity has breached, or will imminently breach, nature’s limits, their message is that human societies have to start curbing their economic and material development.

Read the full article here.

Labour has no answers to Britain’s economic slump

philmullan Cultural renaissance, Economic growth, Economic policy, Politics, Zombie economy

The government’s long-awaited industrial strategy is a weak rehash of familiar, failed ideas.

After Labour’s first year of chaos and U-turns, the prime minister Keir Starmer managed to keep a straight face when claiming this 10-year industrial strategy provided ‘stability’ and ‘certainty’ for business. Though if any business leaders thought the document offered ‘certainty’ even about taxation levels just four months’ hence in the autumn Budget, they would have been disappointed.

This stereotypical industrial policy announcement prompts three questions. Why did it take them so long to draw up something so standard? Second, why is there such a gap between the widely-perceived scale of our economic problems and this hackneyed set of policies? And, third, more perplexing, why is there still so much support across the political spectrum for the idea of an ‘industrial strategy’, when all these blueprints for change have been so ineffective in shaking Britain out of its economic stupor? 

For answers to these questions, read the full article here.

Scrap the fiscal rules, abolish the OBR

philmullan Democracy, Economic growth, Economic policy, Politics, State intervention , ,

The parlous state of the British economy and its public finances shows us what happens when you defer to the ‘experts’. Rachel Reeves is a middle manager posing as chancellor. She exemplifies the managerial politician. She doesn’t make political decisions about what the country and its people need, so much as follow rules and procedures authored by experts – by those who supposedly know best.

Read the full article here.

Trump is hardly the West’s only trade warrior

philmullan Creative destruction, Economic growth, Geopolitics, State intervention, Trade

Enough of the hyperbole about Trump’s tariffs. His tariffs are wrong, but so is the rest of the west’s obsession with Trump-driven trade wars. For a start the hysteria over Trump’s tariffs ignores, and distracts, from just how protectionist most mature economies have become. Protectionism in its many forms impedes the domestic business investments needed for productivity growth. And the parallel fear-mongering about a ‘trade war’ is clouding the bigger geopolitical, as well as the economic issues, at stake today.

Read the full article here.

The myth of America’s economic exceptionalism

philmullan Economic growth, Economic policy, Productivity, State intervention, The longest depression

What sort of economy is the returning president Donald Trump inheriting? In otherwise polarised and uncertain times, a consensus stands out: the belief in US economic exceptionalism. America’s recent growth out-performance and its ever-climbing equity markets seem to make the country the exception to economic stagnation across the west. But America’s underlying productive decay is not that different to the other mature industrialised nations. The staying power of the narrative of ‘US exceptionalism’ points not to the US’s exceptional vigour but rather to some peculiar forces for resilience in the face of its long-running productive decline. These US-specific factors reveal America’s superior capacity to offset its moribund tendencies.

Read the article here.